


And her words were like fingers

by Jenwryn



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: F/M, Kissing, M/M, Magic, Romance, Virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-11
Updated: 2010-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-08 21:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He grins, and the sun is warm, just warm enough, just perfect. [Very early Season 1, perhaps]</p>
            </blockquote>





	And her words were like fingers

**Author's Note:**

> There's been a significant amount of noise made, recently, about OFCs and Mary Sues ([this](http://boosette.dreamwidth.org/864733.html) is a particularly awesome discussion of the matter), and it's made me feel two things – firstly, nostalgic for my early days of fandom, when my (damn she was fun to write) OFC Meaghan Monahan took my visualisations of the Stargate universe by storm and ran with them, AND, secondly, a great desire to write an OFC just for the fun of it, just because I can, and just because awesome women are, frankly, really very awesome. The fact that I'm currently mainlining on BBC's Merlin is why she ended up with a certain young warlock. And the fact that I wrote this whilst wilting under a high-pressure university deadline had, of course, nothing to do with anything at all. Really.
> 
> The title comes from a quote from James Joyce's _Araby_ ("but my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires").

_You don't really want him to be your first, do you,_ she says, her voice dancing, her hand brushing away the small insects buzzing at the water's edge. She's only half-dressed. He's seen women naked before – he grew up in the country, he's seen everything naked before and, therefore, stripped, somehow, of its basic sensuality – but half-dressed is making his mind do funny, achey, pleasant things against the confines of his skull. Her left shoulder is all smooths and shadows, beneath the dappled light falling through the trees above. The strap of her shift has slipped down her arm, just a little, just enough; he wants to slide his fingers between cloth and skin and just rest them there against her. Her words make him shift his gaze, though, from the strap to her shoulder, from her shoulder to the dips of her clavicle, tempting and there, and then up, further, slowly, wide-eyed, to her face. She's just a girl, just this girl, visiting the Court as handmaiden to a Baroness from the distant north, but she'd seen him, her first day in the Great Hall, and she'd _known_. She'd known everything, and Merlin had felt it as sure as he'd felt his own pulse and then, in a narrow passage near the kitchens, she'd flicked blue light from her palm to his.

She's grinning at him wickedly, now, and, when he meets her gaze, slightly startled, she bursts into laughter, low and golden, and it melts into the soft noises of the woods around them.

_I have,_ Merlin says, very seriously, and the edges of his mouth only quirking a little, _no idea what you're talking about._

Her eyes are bright beneath pale lashes that seem to gleam from whatever angle he considers them.

_What I'm talking about?_ she teases. _Oughtn't you to be asking _whom_ I'm talking about?_

Merlin grins, and the sun is warm, just warm enough, just perfect, against the nape of his neck, as he leans in, bold with the knowledge that, yes, they both know exactly who she's talking about—and he kisses her.

Her mouth is pliant beneath his, and she puts her fingers in his hair, and he likes the feel of it, likes it enough that he doesn't compare it to fantasies involving heavier hands, sword-calloused hands. He doesn't compare anything; simply feels her, and her touch, and the knowledge that the both of them know exactly what it is that they're doing – there are no hidden meanings here, no deeper implications, no destiny. The sheer ease, simplicity, naturalness, almost laziness of it, curls through Merlin's insides and he hums with pleasure against her lips. Her hands caress his neck, wanderingly. He shifts against her, shifts against the whole wide world, and somehow she's in his lap and his hands are on the slight curve of her waist, and he thinks how well she fits there.

She leans back a little, knowing and even brighter than before, and he has a flash of understanding that he's used magic to move her.

She nips at his earlobe and it's his turn to laugh, laugh easily.

_The funny thing is,_ Merlin says, with his hands rumpling her shift, sliding down to thumb at the place where her waist grows softer and turns into hips, _I actually kind of do want that. For him. To be the first. For me. You know. I mean, sometimes I think he barely even knows I'm alive, and sometimes I think he just likes to drive me mad, and sometimes I wish I'd never met him, but—yes. I really kind of do want that._

And she grins, and she says it's good, and they kiss until the kiss grows as lazy as the sunlight, soft and kind; hands beneath cotton and the daytime sky. And Merlin pulls the want of it all, the need of it, through his body and into hers and out into the world around them, not physically, but literally, the magic spreading tendrils of plants along the ground and unfurling softly against Merlin's bare toes. It's like coming, like a climax, like a pinnacle reached and toppled over, but less than that, and more than that, and she laughs in the light of it, laughs at Merlin, and Merlin laughs with her, and she says, her face leaning in against his neck, _I know; I've known since I saw you in the Great Hall, saw that thing that the pair of you do with your eyes, when you're looking at each other, and when you aren't. I just wondered whether you knew too._

_Oh._ Merlin grins, huge and goofy and not minding at all, because this is freedom, this, here, in the open, away from the world, with magic kissing at his fingers and the girl kissing at his collarbone, and this is what he wants, he knows it now; this is what he wants with someone else; she's made him realise; this is what he will wait for. _So you just, what, do these little public services, do you?_ he teases.

She smiles and blows a raspberry against his neck, then leaves a mark that Arthur won't be able to miss, and Merlin thinks that's answer enough.


End file.
